Equitum Sidereus: Domini Manibus Percutiam
by Natospec
Summary: continuation of the story started with equitum sidereus, the masters hands stike, and within those hands the blood of billions will soak.


**I told you all I wouldn't be waiting too long to start this sequel to Equitum Sidereus, this one I promise will be longer, as I am on summer vacation, and am insomniatic at the moment, I find myself bored and unable to sleep untill the clock strikes three. So I will write, all of this is off the top of my head, and is infact a project that non of my friends and family know I have going on, the nosey bastards still haven't figured out the decrypt for my hardrive. Mostly because it's a 37 digit alphanumerical code. So here we go, this is the first chapter. Enjoy it, review it. I'm trying to write better, but I'm the only one who reads these before they get posted, then Ulquiorra9000 who looks at it first. Then im not so sure who reads it. I think roguebaron does as well, after that it's all a mystery. This chapters going to be a tiny bit longer than my short little stubby chapters.**

Equitum Sidereus: Domini Manibus Percutiam

Knights starlight part 2 : The Masters hands strike

"So whats the story?" a voice asks, boots clanking across the steel decking, the lights of hundreds of LED's and computer consoles in the bridge cascading across the shadowed forms of the crew, a red emergency light flashing and rotating in a continuous silent pattern.

"we've hailed the surrounding wreckage and the global defense platform… we've gotten no answer, it's like everything was wiped out and didn't even fight back. I don't understand how this was even possible" I sigh as I enter the bridge, my numerous injuries fully healed, all but my mind and heart. Those two rest with Hale.

"Cap, what the hell is going on?" I ask, looking out at the expanse of space from behind the foot thick plates of Plexiglas, the hulking forms of shredded battleships and jump ships littering the space around Hammer, all of them baring free worlds markings.

"Hammer… hammer has been lost, we need to head to the moon base to gather some supplies, hopefully some of the crew there knows what happened. In any circumstance, I want all units on high alert, full anti-personnel combat kits, and I want the light armored units on the ground before the technitions. We still don't know what the hells going on, and unless otherwise identified, everything that moves is a potential enemy. Engineer Ghalla; move the ship to sixty two degrees starboard and follow standard route to dock with the moon. Technician Maijn; unlock all onboard weapon lockers, code white, authorization code delta lambda." The Captain calmly orders, the men comply with a sharp "aye" as the ship rumbles back to life and one of the security officers passes me a battle rifle from the nearby wall mounted locker, two connected magazines are handed to me with the rifle and I load them into place.

"sir, request permission to head to armory" I ask the captain, hoping I could go to the massive onboard weapons store to pick up a set of infantry armor plates and a side arm.

"Granted, we will be on the moon in six minutes, tell your crew to get themselves ready for potential heavy combat. I want them in the nighthawk power armor to follow the battle armor out. Arm yourselves appropriately." He says, waving me off as he concentrated on the displays of all of the cameras on the ship.

I make my way to the knights recreational room and palm the lock on the door, making it slide open in a hiss of hydraulic fluid. Inside I find Nils splayed out on the couch asleep, his normally ear length red hair drastically shortened by being damaged from his burns back on Trene, he lays with one leg draped off the side of the sofa, an old issue of _SOLARIS MECHWERKS MONTHLY _lay open over his face to block out the harsh white light of the room. I look over to the side of the room containing one of the virtual reality devices, Maila sits on the floor with her legs crossed tinkering with the now non functioning machine, broken during a fight between me and Nils over a bottle of Whiskey from the locked cabinet in my officers quarters, which we ended up breaking against the wall during the playful tussle, took me three weeks to tear the electronic lock out of the cabinet so I could get into it in the first place.

Noticing that I entered the room, Miala picks the helmet like device out of her lap and sets it into a plastic bin next to her. She then stands up and says "Well… it's broken still, it's not like we really used it all that much anyway, so what's up?" while brushing herself off, the loose black shirt she wears coated in specks of the lithium grease I lubricate all of my personal weapons with. Probably stole off with it when I was asleep.

"You know; if you wanted to use my work shirt you could have just asked." I say, noting down the bashful look that comes across her face when I pin her with petty thievery.

"I would have, except you leave your door unlocked so it's more convenient to just take it rather than going through the ship to figure out where the hell you hide when you're not around here." She says, a cute little smug smirk coming to her face, dragging and equally smug smile to mine. "Yeah, I guess you have a point, and when I'm on guard duty, I usually hide out in the small arms repair tech room. Baerd lets me bum around there as long as I occasionally give him a hand." I stop talking to go pull the magazine off of Nils face to wake him up, the harsh led lights on the ceiling quickly dragging him from dream land. He sits up, whipping the bit of drool off of his face as he does so. Looking at me with an odd expression, he stands up and walks towards the blast door and into the hall without saying a single word.

"Fawks… what just happened?" Miala asks, a look of utter confusion adorning her face as she stares at the door that Nils just left through. "I really have no idea. I hope he's headed to the armory, because that's where we have to go, I will brief the two of you on the situation when we get there." I say, not really sure were Nils had run off too, I did tell him before he fell asleep that I would wake him when we made resupply plans.

Putting that aside, I grab Maila's hand and we hurriedly make our way to the ships only infantry armory. Offering my identification card and the explaination of my orders to the posted guard, a Battle armor soldeier named Avery Lawsyn, he unlocks the large titanium blast doors and allows us inside. Where, as I had hoped, Nils stood with one fot up on a bench, tying a pair of infantrymans boots of, expecting us to take a ship down to the planets surface.

"Nils, stop there. We are going onto Outpost 19C on the moon. Something bad happened so we need to see if there is still anyone around to tell us what it was. Orders straight from Captain Tallow, gear up in _Nighthawk _PA's take heavy infantry and light armor loadouts." I say as I walk over to the large crates that hold the sets of infantry light power armor. Sliding my access card into one of them, its lid lifts upward, the armor, and its plates suspended on a metal frame slide up into view, its polarized visor reflecting the room around it.

I quickly strip down to my boxers, not caring a bit about the environment I'm doing it in, and slide the bulky self sealing rubberized under suit of the armor, containing all of the assisted movement myomers and the locking system for the helmet, small round titanium receivers for the armor plates pop out of the suit, the claw like jaws that hold the interlocking plates to the suit sit open, ready ro receive the plates, and the odd, almost inconveniently shaped micro fusion power pack that sits inactive clamped to the back wall of the crate.

I assemble the plates of armor on my chest, shoulders, and lower back, then pull the heavy titanium boots on, then snap the clamshell like sections of the shin and kneecap sections on, finishing with the upper leg and cod piece, as well as the odd projecting skirt like lower torso armor, I carefully and slowly move the heavy armor to the back of the box. Laying my back onto the armored power pack, it's heavy locking connectors snapping into place the bulky armor and oddly fitting under suit shrink down to fit me perfectly, the plates of armor so close together that the myomer suit is not visible underneath them.

Reaching up above my head with the now energized armor, I pull the helmet off of the rack and lock it down to my head, its internal foam padding expanding to encase my head properly. I step out of the box, testing the armor that has probably never even been taken out of the box. Activating the magnetic boots through thought like with a neurohelmet in a mech, I feel them clamp down to the decking, releasing as I subconsciously lift my leg, then reattaching to the decking as my foot nears it again.

I step over the wall sectionedoff for heavier infantry weapons, like the laser rifles, recoilless rifles and rocket launchers, and select a portable plasma rifle, taking 30 of the small plastic cartridges out of the box below, I angle the shoulder strap so the rifle hangs off of my shoulder straight up in the air, and open a small ammunition hatch on the left forearm of the armor and push all of the little cartridges up into the spring loaded hatch. Setting the spring tension to drop five of the plastic plasma mediums into my left hand every time I shove the release latch, then I lumber over to the small arms section and select two magazine fed Gunter MP-20 sub machine guns, magnetically attaching them to the skirt like kidney armor plates, along with two spare magazines for each of the sub guns. Checking on the progress of Maila and Nils, seeing them do almost the same as me, grabbing plasma rifles and Gunter's I walk out of the armory into the vehical loading bay of the ship, empty at the moment, the large hatch at the end of the bay would open up to create a ramp to drive large vehicals and mechs up into the belly of the ship where they would sitbefore being organized in the motor pool and mech bays deeper in the ship.

Awaiting me when I arrive is the Battle armor squad, a mix of _Achellius _and _Longinus_ battle armors, the leader I recognize as Elyse, from the white and purple pain job on his suit, the others being a mismatched bunch of solid orange to a red and black tiger stripe, my armor being a flat non reflective slate gray, standard issue stealth radar diffusing paint. I stroll over to Elyse and sit down on a steel auto cannon 20 ammo crate, waiting for the ship to reach the docking location to let the bunch of us out to secure the landing sight and start bringing in supplies.

Maila and Nils soon arrive just as the air in the room is vacuumed out, and the massive hydraulic rams that hold the doors closed pulse to life as they now shove them open. They slowly lower, allowing the harsh bright light of the local sun to beam into the Jump ships loading bay. The doors lock as they stop above the ground level, refusing to open any farther as the hydraulics strain to lower the door. Failing to continue the downward movement, the hydraulics shut off, making us force ourselves down to the lower gravity moon's surface. I do so by using the directed reactor heat vents directional controls to vent the high pressure hot air above me; shooting my armored form into the furrocrete paved surface below cracking it from the pressure, the magnetic boots grasp onto the cracked surface, and I turn around to see the others do the same maneuver, albeit with much more finesse, then pull the plasma rifle off of my back.

Loading five of the plastic cartridges into it I step over to where the rest of the mismatched team had gathered, the Sidereus's ramp closing up above us, I arrive as the squads are issued orders by Elyse.

"Zulu; Head to the munitions elevators and check for the maintenance teams there. Gryphon squad, head into the control facility, your smaller armor will perform better in those spaces. My squad will be heading to the main reactor fuel rod storage sector to engage the systems there to change out the fuel rods in the ships reactor. Keep me posted on the situation, if you run into any hostiles, kill them and haul ass back to the ship." The group nods at Elyse in affirmation, then begin to disperse towards their objectives. My small team of Miala and Nils make our way towards the small white building that makes up the main traffic control center; a seven story tower with a crow's nest sits in the center of the building.

As we arrive at the front area of the building I Immediately notice a problem that would have killed anyone without a pressure suit inside and call it into Elyse.

"Gryphon lead, main airlock of the control center is shredded; looks like some power armor or something peeled the door open, moving in weapons hot, over." I announce over the radio, a green affirmative light blinking in the heads up display next to Elyse's name. Then signal that we were going inside, I lay the plasma rifle at the door, its long bulky barrel would have just gotten in the way, and draw one of the Gunter MP 20's then I shuffle into the torn airlock, the second internal airlock in a much less destroyed state, but still not functional, its left door twisted off of the seal track, and the right one forced to the edge of its track, a claw like tear missing from its edge.

Moving into the first room of the control center, I grimace at the amount of bodies, bleeding from their ears from the explosive decompression force. Some of the bodies lay in odd positions, up against walls and on top of desks, the majority of electronic equipment lay strewn about on the floor.

"Gryphon lead, main room. Confirmed casualties from decompression, evidence indicate a forced entry through both airlock doors, resulting in an air pressure shock. Others look to have died from suffocation. Moving to tower base, over" I report, moving my team towards the elevator base of the Control tower. The doors to the elevator appear to be crushed closed like something didn't want anyone to get in or get out, the elevator airlocks appear to be destroyed by heavy machine gun fire. I look down at the floor and reach to pick up one of the fifty caliber shells strewn about on the ground, retrieving one I turn it over to find the manufacturers stamp to say VICOR INDUSTRIES TERRA, and are stamped with an outdated comstar insignia.

"Elevator impossible to traverse, empty ammunition casings indicate comstar surplus, Vicor industries, but it has the old star league era insignia, heading back to the ship, over and out" I report again, turning my back on the elevator and begin to walk towards the destroyed primary airlock, the sounds of myomer fibers being rapidly stretched and the clap of metal on furrocrete meet my ears as I exit the building.

I reach for my plasma rifle, to find it missing, along with the rifles of my teammates. A large sharp claw print stamped into the furrocrete makes my neck hair stand on end. I back up to the airlock and survey the area around the control center, a small shimmer in my heads up display nearly giving me a heart attack. Damned older display causing ghosting, I relax my straining grip on the Gunter, stepping back outside I look around again before a red light pops up over the Zulu squad leaders name. Disappearing with a dull crack sound, his name fades away to a black KIA status. The two other squad members names doing the same soon after, two dull bangs resounding off of the moons thin atmosphere.

"SHIT GRYPHON EYES OPEN WE HAVE HOSTILES; RETREAT BACK TO THE SHIP, THE REACTOR CORE EXCHANGE IS IN ITS FINAL STAGE!" Elyse shouts over the radio,His own confusion clearly showing in his strained warning.

I begin to walk towards the ship, just clearing the raised platform that the control center rests on before my entire HUD shimmers, the onboard motion detector giving a weak and sudden movement blip directly ahead of me. Warning sirens go odd in my head as I hoist the gunter to the firing position, as my bulky gloved finger finds the trigger the barrel of the gunter is crushed, the gun torn from my grasp.

The shimmer materializes into a massive armored figure, a bloody palm print adorning the cannon on the right arm, a combat claw on the left clutching the destroyed Gunter, four lrm launchers adorn the massive battle armors shoulders.

"Fuck me! CONTACT! ASSAULT CLASS BATTLE ARMOR RETREAT RETREAT!" I yell as loud as I can into the mic, adrenaline and fear coursing through my veins. I burst into motion as I run after my squad mates towards the ship, its long loading ramp slowly coming back down. Five kilometers left I push all the speed I can into my run, a red light lasers path of fire streaming over my head from the Hostile Battle armors cannon. I finally reach the lowering ramp, this time it lowers nearly enough to touch the ground.

Above the ramp, the hulking form of a _Moltke_ main battle tank greeting me, firing a large laser that directly hits the enemy armor. My heart calms as the smoke billows from the impact of the laser. Knowing that no conventional battle armor could survive a direct hit from a large laser I step onto the ramp and begin my ascent upwards.

A massive screech of metal hitting metal, followed by the explosion of a long range missile throws me from the decking, I fly upwards and away from the explosion generated by an lrm hitting the _Moltke_ as fear grips my mind, that monstrous battle armor was still an active threat. Even capable of destroying a _Moltke_, that shouldn't be possible.

"Fawkes! You alright man?"Elyse's stressed voice comes to my ears, a solid shove from his armor sending mine tumbling back into the gravity stream generated by the ship, and sending me crashing into the decking.

"Yes, I think I'm okay. How the hell do we kill that thing?" I ask him, standing myself up next to him, he hands me a portable gauss rifle and points at the battle armor outside. "Shoot at it. If that doesn't work, I've set a going away present as of orders VV-22B; destroy all equipment left behind at friendly base upon retreat. The bases fusion reactor is set to melt down in five minutes." He says to me, pulling Maila into the ship, whose hand is latched onto Nils shoulder armor, dragging them both inside.

I take aim with the portable gauss rifle, its targeting computer bleeping as it locates the target, I pull the trigger, a hot white flash accelerates towards the hostile and deflects off of the armor plating and into the ground, leaving a large crated in the furrocrete and thowing fragments of it into the space around us.

"Close the hatch! Tallow Get the ship the fuck out of here now!" Elyse yells, calmer than before as we all look over to the nuclear reactor that powers the moon base, a bright white dome of light shooting out of it as the ship leaves the moons orbit. The hatch seal as the moon base is turned into a radioactive lava pit from the heat generated by the core meltdown.

"What the fuck was that thing?" I ask as I pull the power armor helmet from my head, my sweat soaked hair matted against my forehead, damn power armor suits get hot when you use them.

"The insignia on the suit is the bloody hand. So the reports must be true…" Elyse says ominously, drawing off into his own thoughts as he pulls his own helmet off, not a touch of sweat on his head, the other helmets must have a cooling system in them. His drawing off alerts me to the fact that he knows something about what's going on and hasn't told.

"What reports? What the hell is going on?" I demand as I step in front of Elyse blocking his path to the door into the armory.

"The word of blake, reports is that they began to attack stronghold planets a few weeks back, but hpg chatter was so broken up that I haven't the slightest clue what the overall situation happens to be." He says while sidestepping me and walking into the battle armor armory.

"We will probably head back to Atreus to figure out what the hell we are supposed to be doing; we might even make it in time for the ceremony for the second knights." Elyse says before the door to the BA armory closes and locks, leaving me to go back to the PA armory to get out of the overheating power armor and head back to my quarters to try and figure this whole thing out.


End file.
